Heist
by Callista Miralni
Summary: Based on the novel by Ally Carter. "I told you I quit the family business Sasuke." Her pink lips were set in a narrow line. "Okay fine." Sasuke relaxed into the expensive leather upholstery of his limo. "But are you out of the family?" SasuSaku. AU.
1. The Porsche

Heist

Callista Miralni

Disclaimer: I do not own _Heist Society_ by Ally Carter or _Naruto_.

For the sasusaku LJ Valentine's Day gift exchange. Thank you to **sadira22** for organizing this event!

* * *

One: The Porsche

The alumni of the prestigious Konoha Institute said things had taken a turn for the worst.

Some blamed the shift from an all-boys school to a co-ed institution to keep up with their rival, Suna Academy. Others cited the decline in respect for their elders in the younger generations.

In the "good ol' days," Konoha did not admit just anybody. There was a waiting list three miles long and every single individual on that list came from a wealthy family as old as the United States. And back in the "good ol' days," _no one_ would have ever _dared_ to give up their precious admission into the Institute. Yet this year, _someone_ did and the infamous three-mile waiting list oddly consisted of one person, one slip of a girl.

Oh but the school's lawns were still a deep green, smooth as velvet. The dark red brick buildings still shone with old world charm, the ivy neatly trimmed. The fountain, installed by the school's third Headmaster in 1892, still spouted water from a rather large pineapple but for the last two days, that flow was directed through other means besides the concrete fruit.

Construction crews spent the last two days dismantling and untangling the intricate bond between fountain and Headmaster Danzo's 1958 Porsche Speedster. Someone—a very clever someone—had snuck in a crane behind the ivy walls (leaving behind muddy scars to prove it) and hoisted Danzo's convertible atop the fountain before wiring it in such a complex manner so that water spouted from the head and tail lights of the vehicle.

In the good ol' days, the perpetrator of such a malicious act would have quietly taken his or her leave of the school with his or her head bowed in shame.

They would have NOT continued to profess their innocence and walked around campus with their head held high as if they had done nothing wrong.

To Danzo's relief, the perpetrator was already known and scheduled for a meeting with the Student Advisory Board in fifteen minutes. What happened to the good ol' days where students behaved and were overly self-conscious of their reputations in high society?

And as fate would have it, the said suspect happened to be that slip of a girl who somehow breezed her way into these ivy covered walls at the very last minute.

Haruno Sakura.

"That's her!"

The boy whipped his head around to stare at the passing girl.

There is no way any normal person would have been able to see Haruno Sakura on the streets and _not_ stare. For starters, she had _pink_ hair. That alone caught attention.

Of course, nobody actually knew her hair was naturally strawberry blonde but with that last job before Konoha, Sakura was forced to bleach her locks in order to distract the security guards while her father...

Another time, another life. It seemed so far behind her even though was only three months ago.

The other things about Haruno Sakura that attracted attention was the fact that no matter how much she denied it and stood next to Ino, Sakura was gorgeous. And her name, that name that caused a handful of people to wax poetic about the "Zen essence" of her name, definitely drew attention.

Some students speculated she was a distant relative of the Royal family. From which Royal bunch though, was always debated. Others said the only reason why she got into Konoha at the very last moment was because her father was a highly successful businessman overseas on the main continent and in Europe. Still others said she was nothing more than a freak of a pauper.

Sakura could have stirred up more rumors about herself but she didn't bother putting forth the effort. Even if she told the truth—about her background, her lineage, her possession of an incredibly precious chrysanthemum hair pin only the Japanese princesses wore before democracy—no one would have believed her in the first place.

"No way. How'd you think she did it?"

They were, of course, referring to the Headmaster's Porsche. The Porche-gate, after that famous American scandal.

"No clue. I'd kill to know though. It's too bad she's..."

Sakura didn't bother to stop and ask the boy what was in store for her. Her stomach already knew what her mind adamantly denied.

She turned a corner and walked down a near lifeless hallway. The squeak of her shoes echoed in the space, making the girl wince. In these last three months, Sakura turned into the girl who wore squeaky shoes. What would Sarutobi-jii-chan think? He'd call her an utter disgrace for starters.

Opening the door, Sakura took in the room's finer details. The curtains were half drawn over the glass windows, allowing in the November afternoon light. The walls were paneled in dark cherry and a single chair sat in the middle of the room with several other rows of chairs surrounding it.

Sakura had never been in a courtroom but she had the sneaking suspicion it would look a lot like this only less comfortable.

"We will begin the disciplinary hearing of Haruno Sakura, aged fifteen and a current sophomore at Konoha Institute." The Student Council President, an Aburame Shino, began the moment she sat down in the solitary chair.

"Haruno-san, you are charged with the willful... _theft_ of personal property on the night of November 13th. By committing this act, you are also found violating the school's curfew and destroying school artifacts. Do you understand the charges?"

Sakura paused to check if they really wanted her to respond. "I didn't do it." She finally said.

Headmaster Danzo, looking in worse condition than she had ever seen him in before, slammed his hand down on the table. "The question, _Haruno-san_, is if you understand the charges, not if you agree with them."

"Oh I understand Headmaster." Sakura frowned. "I just don't agree with them. What evidence do you have that _I'm_ the one who stole your Porsche like you said?"

"And she asks for evidence! Very well, we shall-"

"Headmaster." One of the senior members of the committee placated the flustered man with a smile. "Usually it is customary for us to review the student's academic history before passing judgement is it not?"

That comment distracted Danzo. "Oh well... yes... but since Haruno-san has only been with us a few months, she has no substantial academic record for us to go off of."

The inquirer, a thin woman Sakura would later learn to be Nan Shizune, bounced back with, "But surely this is not the first school Haruno-san has attended. What about her records from her previous schools?"

Feeling smug as she watched the old man fumble with words, Sakura couldn't help but mentally pat herself on the back. This was her biggest job yet, one that had taken months of planning and preparation.

"Er... well... Suna Academy's computer crashed and they lost all their student files over the summer. And Hong Kong Prep's records' building caught fire last March and they haven't finished recovering anything. Haruno-san has no records that we could retrieve."

Shizune looked impressed with the name-dropping. "Those are some of the finest schools in Asia. Tell me, what does your parents do?"

If anything, what your parents did and didn't do mattered very much at a place like Konoha Institute. Sighing at the typical question, Sakura answered, "My mother's dead."

Sympathy played her worst card. The people in the room sighed in pity.

"And your father?" Danzo pressed.

At this, Sakura grinned wolfishly. "He... deals in art."

The head of the Art department perked up. "Collecting?"

The teen's grin grew wider. "More like... _distribution._"

"That's nice." Danzo interrupted any further discussion. "But it does not pertain to my... I mean, the matter at hand!"

"Haruno-san!" The Headmaster barked, on full inquisitor mode. "Where were you on the evening of Friday, November 13th?"

She knew the answer to that one. "In my room studying."

"And that in itself is a lie!" Danzo cried in triumph. "Why would a _student_ on a _Friday night_ be _studying_ instead of out _socializing_?"

The girl shrugged. "Hey Konoha's a difficult place. I have to study all the time to keep up."

Shino cut in. "Can anyone prove it? Did anyone actually see you that night?"

"Well no..."

"Oh but someone saw you Haruno-san! Or did you not know about the cameras?"

As a matter of fact, Sakura did know about the cameras. All 358 of them. She knew their field of vision, their maintenance schedules, the model number, manufacturer, and the blind spots. Sakura had the feeling she knew more about Konoha's security that most of the administration.

Not that she would tell them that.

Too many witnesses—her father would say.

The lights dimmed and the curtains drew themselves as a section of paneling slid back to revel the projector screen hidden behind it. Everyone watched the security tapes as they played a fifteen minute video of a girl in a black hoodie streak across the courtyard in front of the dormitories with a pair of keys in hand. The video abruptly cut to the camera positioned by the fountain where a large crane was lifting the 1958 Porsche into the air and situating it atop the pineapple fountain.

"We have further evidence! At 2:27 am, _your_ key card was used to open the door."

Sakura's student ID came up next and the girl inwardly cringed. Ino would have a fit if she saw that.

"And a search of your possessions yielded this."

The sight of the once-crumpled license plate forced Sakura to reconsider the evidence.

"Yet Haruno-san _insists _she is innocent!"

"Look." The girl was practically desperate. "I know it seems like there's evidence against me, but I _swear_ I didn't do it. This has got to be some kind of mistake. I'm not that stupid."

The tick on Danzo's head would have been comical if it weren't for the trying situation.

_If you took the back stairs out the dorms, there are no cameras there and it's a shorter route to the fountain. And if you had enough bubblegum to cover the sensors, you wouldn't even need to use an ID to open the doors again._

That was how Sakura would have pulled off this stunt—if she had actually done it.

"Here at Konoha, we follow the rules. We respect each other. We honor and value the ideals of our forefathers."

The teen cursed her upbringing for being able to so easily lie when the truth is what she needed to save her sorry ass.

_Damn it._

Haruno Sakura had been framed.

* * *

Her bags were packed in record time; there wasn't much to begin with and her stay hadn't been long. As Sakura hauled her meager belongings across the mud scarred lawn, she heard a few giggling voices behind her.

"Um..." An eighth grade boy stopped her. "We were wondering... how did you do it?"

Sakura gave the boy a wry smile. "That," She said as a limo pulled up to the front of the school and stopped before her. "-is an excellent question."

She climbed in the backseat without a second thought, allowing the driver to load her baggage into the trunk.

The biggest con of her life—blown up in her face. By forces she had nothing to do with and couldn't manipulate to her bidding.

"Well. I guess that's over."

"Actually..." Another voice—seated at the other side of the car—broke through her thoughts of self-pity. "This is just the beginning."

And the girl balked.

"_Sasuke?"_

In her world, there were many things that could be taken but some things had to be willingly given up. The sad history behind one Uchiha Sasuke was one of those things.

Oh God knows Sakura tried. She guessed everything from the plague to a plane crash, from orphanage to abandonment. From Bruce Wayne to Dick Grayson. From murder to sheer dumb luck.

Sasuke denied the plane crash and dismissed the plague. But he always skirted around the other possibilities.

And so, Sakura kept guessing.

"What are you doing here Sasuke?"

The other teen put a hand over his heart. "I'm wounded Sakura. Here I am, out of the goodness of my heart, to give you a ride. I thought you would appreciate it."

The girl frowned. "The headmaster called a car for me so you didn't-"

Suddenly, she was pulled out of the limo and back into the interrogation room. Hitting herself on the forehead, she internally wailed, _Why didn't I think of that before?_

"Really Sasuke? Isn't the headmaster's car a bit much and cliché of you?"

The teen smirked. "I thought it was fitting. After all, didn't Danzo ever tell you that Uchiha Sasuke the Fourth bought that as a gift for Uchiha Sasuke the Fifth, who in turn, gave it as a gift to Headmaster Danzo at the start of the spring term when he heard his childhood _friend_ was going to con her way into his school in the fall? Technically Sakura, I trashed _my_ car so it's all good."

She was pretty sure that was all bullshit Sasuke pulled out of his ass and told him so.

"It's nice to see you too Sakura." Sasuke rolled his onyx eyes at her.

What was she supposed to say to that? Hey, nice to see you too? Or—I appreciate you rigging my expulsion from Konoha? How about: Sasuke, have you gotten hotter? Then there's the cliché _I missed you?_

"Look." Sakura's fists were balled up at her sides. "Did Tou-chan put you up to this because I swear to God if he did-"

Sasuke chuckled. "He hasn't called me since Beijing. Probably still upset with me."

"Huh." Sakura threw him a withering stare. "I guess that makes two of us."

"Hey!" Sasuke returned the look with one of his own. "We all deemed that monkey to be perfectly trained at the time."

"It doesn't change the fact that you still got me kicked out Sasuke."

At the other end of the limo, the sixteen-year-old billionaire gave her his trademark smirk and a cocky bow. "I try."

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. "You're unbelievable!"

"Au contraire sweetheart,"—and Sakura suddenly felt uncomfortable with the endearment that sounded strange coming from Sasuke's lips—"I'm perfectly believable. That's why I haven't been caught."

"So why'd you do it?" Sakura countered, too tired to argue with Sasuke further on the subject.

"You don't belong there."

"Sasuke..." Her viridian eyes narrowed. "I'm _serious_. Why did you do it?"

The teen threw up his hands—in exasperation or surrender, Sakura wasn't too sure of—and combed his messy raven locks with his fingers. "I have a job."

She opened her mouth to give him the same reason she left.

"One only for you. And a message."

"I told you I quit the family business Sasuke." Her pink lips were set in a narrow line.

"Okay fine." Sasuke relaxed into the expensive leather upholstery of his limo. "But are you out of the family?"

* * *

The immense estate on the outskirts of Tokyo was the only place Sakura ever heard Sasuke call home. Although the Uchiha family owned several properties including a gorgeous beachfront property in the Philippines (too sandy), a luxurious flat in Singapore (too hot), a palatial apartment in Hong Kong (too noisy), and mansion in Tokyo's Edogawa ward (too stiff), the ancestral estate was Sasuke's favorite.

The foyer spanned the entire height of the building—all three stories—and stretched for another twenty feet out. One of the features Sakura loved the most was the curving staircase on either side and the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. On sunny days, the single pane of glass above the door warmed the room.

Sasuke ushered her past the foyer and down the hall, not even stopping to glance at the Hanabusa Itchou painting hanging on the wall. Sakura grinned when she saw the scroll but continued to follow Sasuke into the study.

"I had Iruka put you in the blue room." Sasuke said as he rummaged around his desk for something. "Do you want something to eat?"

"I want you to tell me what the hell is going on and whatever message you've got for me."

Sasuke gave her a funny look but said nothing as he picked up the phone and dialed his butler's extension. Taking advantage of his preoccupation, Sakura wandered around the study, stopping at a painting hanging above the fireplace.

"It's a Monet." Sasuke called over the phone.

"I can see that." The girl murmured, captivated by the work of one of the Old Masters.

As a thief in the art industry, Sakura learned to appreciate the finer aspects of art. She learned to appreciate its value and asses its worth. Most of all, she learned to know when-

"You stole it."

Sasuke smirked. "What can I say? The guy in Mecca challenged me and I tore his entire security system apart in two minutes."

Unbelievable. Here was a guy who could afford to buy a Hanabusa Itchou with pocket money who chose to steal a Monet. How many of those could you meet?

Sprawled out on one of the leather couches in the study, Sasuke tore her attention away from the painting. "So... you miss me?"

Sakura sank down into the chinz armchair opposite of him. "No." She growled, rubbing her temples.

His smirk only grew wider and the girl held back her groan. A big part of a thief's life depended on the ability to lie. Hours ago, she was cursing herself for being so gifted at lying but now Sakura felt so amateur.

"Right..."

"You might want to remember that _I'm _the one who taught you everything you know." Sakura snapped.

"You might want to remember everything you taught me then Sakura." Sasuke scoffed. "So you were happy playing schoolgirl at Konoha?"

"I would have been _normal,_ that's for sure." She shot back.

The teen snorted. "_Normal_. That's a good one. You'll never be normal Sakura. Your hair's a good indication of just how normal you'll ever be."

She was furious. After two years, two **measly** years of knowing each other, Sakura hated the fact that Sasuke knew her better than she knew him.

"I could've been happy!"

"Could have." Sasuke pointed out. "But they kicked you out."

She glared. "Who's fault is that?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Point taken. But I had my reasons."

"A job."

"And a message." Sasuke reminded her.

"Don't you own a cell phone company?" Sakura asked in her exasperation. "You could have called instead of framing me."

"Only a small one. And it only services the rural Hokkaido area." Sasuke surveyed her again. "Besides, the message has to be given face to face."

And suddenly, Sakura understood.

"So how's Sarutobi-jii-chan?" She sighed in defeat.

Trying not to be too pleased with her easy defeat, Sasuke answered, "He's fine. He says he loves you and that Konoha will turn you into a mindless clone."

The girl groaned. Her great-uncle told her the exact same thing before she left for Konoha.

"But that's not his message."

She perked back up.

"He says he's got to give them back."

At that moment, Umino Iruka, Sasuke's butler and the only other living person she had ever seen in the estate, came in with a platter of sushi. Picking up a pair of chopsticks, Sakura daintily set a few pieces on her plate and poured a bit of soy sauce into the built in dish on her platter. The conveniences of contemporary dining.

"So why doesn't he?" Sakura asked after the first roll. "I don't see what that has to do with me."

Sasuke rolled her eyes, amused by her lack of understanding. "Idiot. That is Sarutobi-jii-chan's message. He's got to give them back."

Taking another two rolls, Sakura looked at her friend in confusion. "I don't get it."

Sighing, Sasuke leaned forward on his knees. "Look. Last week, there was a job in Hong Kong. High value artifacts. High risk job. High security. You know—the works. It would probably take two or three crews to do it. And your dad-"

"Say what? Who else is on the suspect list?"

"There _is_ no list Sakura."

Suddenly, the implications crashed down on her. There was a lot more at stake than just her father being paid by his employer.

"So? We're thieves—that's nothing unusual." Sakura put her plate down on the table and stood up to leave. "You don't need me."

Sasuke moved faster and closed his hand around her wrist, pulling her towards him to prevent her from walking out the door.

"It's not the what but the who. See, the bad guy wants his paintings back."

Sasuke felt her laughing at him. "Not like that. Not like how Sarutobi-jii-chan and your dad are bad guys. Not like how I'm a bad guy. This guy is... pure evil. This guy's name is Rinnegan Pein and he won't rest until his paintings are returned."

Sakura stopped laughing. She had seen several expressions on Sasuke's face before—cocky, arrogant, smug, playful, teasing, bored, cold—but she had never seen him look so terrified in his life. Well, as terrified as Uchiha Sasuke could get. The guy was a freakin' rock.

And he had the abs to prove it.

Resting her head on Sasuke's chest, Sakura whispered, "What happened? Tou-chan used to be a lot more careful than this."

She could feel Sasuke's chin on her head and his arms wrapped around her. "Your dad used to have you Sakura."

* * *

"I've put you in Uchiha-sama's room." Iruka opened the bedroom door for her.

Obviously, the old butler meant Sasuke's elusive mother. "Is that okay?" Sakura voiced her concern. She didn't want Sasuke's mother to think she was stealing the room.

"Uchiha-sama will not be needing the room Ojou-san."

"Iruka-" Sakura sighed for the billionth time that day. "Will you ever call me Sakura?"

The butler smiled at the familiar query. "Not today Ojou-san, not today. If you ever need anything, I'm on extension 4."

Iruka closed the door softly behind him and Sakura flopped down on the blue bed of the mysteriously absent Lady Uchiha. Resting her arm over her jade green eyes, Sakura couldn't help but notice just how large and _empty_ the room was. The silence wasn't helping her relax; all she could think about was her dad, Sarutobi-jii-chan, Porsche convertibles, and the Hanabusa.

Sasuke's words kept haunting her in the silence.

_Your dad used to have you Sakura._

The clock on the bedside table read two am but Sakura hadn't slept the entire night. Her convoluted thoughts were like Sasuke's Monet, the ideas running so closely together that they looked like chaos when she was up close. Sakura needed to take a step back and distance herself from her emotions so she could _see_ the whole picture.

Rifling through her bag, her fingers found a stack of thin books. Pulling them out, the girl opened the first and saw her face with a midnight black wig covering her scalp. _Todai Anna—_the name read.

She opened another. _Wu Meilin._

She kept going through the books until she found herself.

_Haruno Sakura_.

"Iruka?" The teen picked up the phone.

"Hai Ojou-san? The butler was too chipper for two in the morning.

"I think I need to see him."

"Of course Ojou-san." Iruka said with patience and understanding. "If you look on the table, I've taken the liberty of purchasing you a ticket."

That's when she saw it hiding underneath the phone. Sliding the envelope out, Sakura looked inside it and smiled.

"You are unbelievable Iruka."

The butler smiled. "I am Bocchan's butler. And you are his favorite guest."

_Seven am: first class ticket to Singapore.

* * *

_

Sakura used to love visiting Singapore. When she was four, her parents first took her to the Singapore Art Museum and they spent the day together as a family. They bought her ice cream, a souvenir bear, and a heart-shaped balloon to commemorate the rare occasion. It wasn't until later that Sakura realized her parents were actually casing the place, planning to steal a particularly fragile sculpture.

The memories of her mother made her heart ache and wish the woman was still around. If anyone could help her, Haruno Rin would be the one.

Still Sakura visited her favorite tea shop right after the plane touched down. Sipping the cool milk tea and chewing on a soft boba pearl, Sakura hopped on the subway and proceeded to wander around the Central Arts District until she found him. Asking for his name and residence from the police or municipal offices was useless; as a thief, his identity and address were forever changing.

But Sakura felt confident that she could find him. Her father was in the very place she expected him to be at eleven am. Even though her father was a world class thief and obeyed every principal of their craft to the letter, some things—like personal dining favorites—were hard to keep distant from.

"Hello Tou-chan." Sakura murmured as she took a seat across from him in the busy outdoor cafe.

"Is that for me?" Hatake Kakashi asked after he swallowed the last of his lo mein.

Rolling her eyes, Sakura handed over her bubble tea and leaned back in her chair. "You don't change."

"That's what you think." Kakashi's one visible eye (the other was scarred to near uselessness when he was a teen and covered by an angled headband) twinkled mischievously. "Singapore's quite a distance for a trip. Aren't you supposed to be at Konoha?"

Her ears burned. "It's fall break—I wanted to see you." The lie sounded awkward coming from her mouth.

"You wanted to know if it's true."

Damn. Caught in the act.

Kakashi handed the rest of his daughter's drink back to her and relaxed. "So who spilled the beans? Sarutobi-jii-chan?"

"Sasuke actually."

Slate gray narrowed. "I'm going to kill that kid." Kakashi muttered.

Sakura frowned. "It's not his fault."

"Yeah like how Beijing wasn't his fault?"

"Hey." She found herself echoing Sasuke's words. "We all agreed that the monkey seemed perfectly trained at the time."

Her father scoffed and waved the waitress for the bill.

"Tou-chan..."

"Sa-chan, would you believe me if I said I didn't do the Rinnegan job last week?" Her father suddenly said.

_That_ caught Sakura off-guard. "What do you mean?"

Kakashi smiled at the waitress (who blushed so hard that it made Sakura uncomfortable to know that there were still women hitting on her father) and signed off on his credit card. She could see his alias for this job on the receipt—Murasaki Obito.

"If I told you I had a solid alibi, would you believe me then?" Kakashi clarified once the waitress left.

Eyes narrowing, Sakura hissed, "Prove it."

A businessman with a newspaper passed by their table and the man easily slipped it out from underneath his arm. The businessman continued walking down the street completely unaware.

_That's the mark of a seasoned pro_. Sakura thought enviously. _Was I ever that good? Will I ever be that good? Not that it matters—I put that all behind me._

Or least, she _thought_ she did.

"Here."

In Mandarin Chinese, the bottom front page article read, "MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE 'FALLEN ANGEL' FROM THE SAM: INTERPOL HAS NO NEW LEADS."

"Wait a minute..." Sakura's eyes widened as she read the article completely. "You mean...?"

"Yup." Kakashi answered. "There's no way I could have done the Rinnegan job because on that same night, I was doing this one."

Things didn't add up. If her father was in Singapore that night, then there's no way he could've been in Hong Kong.

"Tou-chan." Sakura asked slowly. "If the SAM job was last week, why haven't you left yet?"

"Ah..." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Sighing, Sakura took a good look at the square. She spotted them easily—the markings of a surveillance team four days on the job. There were the plainclothes men drinking iced coffee in front of the square's fountain facing their seat in the cafe, the rumpled clothes of a street vendor across the square and the piercing mahogany eyes of a woman who watched them too intently from the steps one one of the other buildings.

"Complications huh?" Sakura answered herself. "So where is she?"

"The _Angel_? Safe. But she's not on me and that's why they can't arrest me."

"Hn."

God. She'd been spending so much time with Sasuke that she started picking up his mannerisms.

"Anyways." Kakashi swiftly changed the subject. "How about doing your old man a favor?"

Raising a blonde brow, Sakura took one look at the square and sighed. "Fine. But you owe me."

Parting ways, Sakura walked up to the nearest police officer clutching her purse and wearing a hysterical expression.

"Oh my God Officer!" Sakura cried out, the tears leaking from her eyes. "Those men... those men... oh God!"

The policeman sighed and asked, "What men?"

"Those ones!" She shrieked, pointing at the plainclothes men preparing to follow her father. "They tried... oh my God... they tried..."

The officer gave her an impatiently glance. "They tried what?"

Sakura motioned for him to come closer and whispered in his ear. The man's eyes widened before he took out his gun and chased after them.

"OI!" The policeman yelled. "STOP!"

Sakura didn't have to check and see if her father had gotten away. Amid the frisking, identification checks, and Chinese swears, Sakura too made her exit.

Just as she was about to board the subway, a limo stopped behind her and the door opened. Two men emerged and grabbed her by the arms, dragging her inside.

"HEY!" The girl yelled indignantly. "What gives?"

"Hello Sakura."

Sarutobi-jii-chan was the only person who ever said her name in that serious tone. But the voice was too deep to be Jii-chan's.

_Oh shit._

"I don't suppose you'd let me go back to catching my flight would you." Sakura said to the man seated at the other end of the limo.

He chuckled and the sound sent shivers down her spine but she keep her cool mask up. "I've been told..." He said slowly. "That you have your father's wit and your mother's eyes."

The mention of her mother caught her off-guard. "You know my mom?"

"I know _of_ her." The man corrected her. "I've been told she was a brilliant woman much like a cat. One of the greatest thieves of our time."

Sakura looked at him again, only this time, she tried to figure out a way of escape.

"You have excellent sources." The girl said slowly.

"I must have the best of everything." He shrugged. "I am Rinnegan Pein."

She knew that just by the aura of _evil_ surrounding the man. Sasuke was not kidding when he said Pein was evil.

"He doesn't have them." She blurted out. "He couldn't have them."

Pein smiled at her as if he thought she was the most amusing thing. Which to him, she probably was.

"Now, now Sakura. It's only out of respect for your mother that I am being so generous. I'm giving Hatake Kakashi two weeks to return my paintings to me. Two weeks. Or something we'd both regret will occur."

The limo stopped in front of the airport.

"Why are you doing this? I told you—he doesn't have them!" Sakura yelled as the guards pushed her out of the car and threw her bag at her.

Pein smiled at her and tossed something in her direction. "Two weeks Sakura."

The door shut and the limo sped off down the street, leaving an extremely frustrated fifteen-year-old girl on the curb with a calling card in her hand.

The terror she felt in the car finally made itself known. With shaking hands, Sakura turned over the card and bit her lip.

_Two weeks_.

* * *

"Sasuke."

Sakura leaned against the doorframe of her host's room. The teen sat up quickly, surprised by her stealthy entrance at eleven o'clock at night.

"What the hell Sakura?" Sasuke groaned. "Knock first! What if I was naked?"

The girl in Sakura tried not to stare at his bare chest but the thief in her took over before she made a fool of herself. "We have a big problem." She said as she sank into the duvet at the foot of Sasuke's bed. "He didn't do the Rinnegan job."

Running a hand through his messy hair, Sasuke asked, "What makes you so sure? Your dad's a habitual liar, on or off the job."

Shoving the newspaper her dad stole in his face, Sakura answered, "Normally, I'd doubt him myself. But he's got a solid alibi, a news article, and an Interpol tail to prove it."

Sasuke took the paper and read the article quickly. "You mean..."

"_Yes_." Sakura waved her arms. "He couldn't have done it _because he had another job that same night._"

Suddenly, Sasuke grabbed her flailing wrist and slipped something out of her hand. It was Pein's calling card. She completely forgot she had it with her.

"Where did you get this?" The boy demanded, throwing off his covers and glowering down at her.

He moved so fast Sakura hadn't realized Sasuke left his bed until he was towering over her. The girl in her couldn't help but notice he was wearing tomato printed pajama pants.

"Nice pants." The comment slipped from her mouth.

"Sakura, where did you get this?" Sasuke asked her again in that deadly soft voice.

The girl sighed. "I met him in Singapore. I think he wanted to talk to Tou-chan but he got to me first and figured I'd make a good messenger since Tou-chan keeps giving him the slip."

Clenching his jaw, Sasuke threw the card down beside her. "So you were alone with him."

"He insisted on giving me a ride to the airport."

"You were alone with him!" Sasuke snapped. "Sakura, when I said this guy was evil, I meant it! Even Sarutobi-jii-chan said he was not a person to cross."

"Sasuke, what am I supposed to do? Pein's giving Tou-chan two weeks to give back paintings he didn't steal. And if he doesn't..."

Sakura didn't have to say what would happen if two weeks went by and Pein didn't get what he wanted.

"Did you tell him he's got the wrong guy?"

"It's not like Rinnegan Pein was going to take my word and a Singapore newspaper for it." Sakura rolled her eyes.

"So this guy really wants his paintings back."

She wanted to tear her hair out; hadn't this been what she'd been telling him all along? "Right. And we're going to give them back."

"Oh that's a _great_ plan." Sasuke said sarcastically. "Except for the fact that _we don't_ _have them."_

"Oh we will." Sakura smiled deviously as she stretched her body out and made her way to the door. "Just as soon as we steal them."

* * *

Author's Notes:

I will release the next chapters as they get typed out. I'm aiming for one every two days but... that's unrealistic of a college student. :/ Definitely done by the end of the month though.

Please tell me what you think! I've tried doing something similar like this before but... I lost interest after the first chapter. And it's so hard to write Sasuke as being a little arrogant and... well... _nice_ while still being so... _Sasuke_. XD Also, I know it's following the original book _pretty_ closely. As the story progress, I will definitely be injecting more of me and less of Ally while still keeping the same basic story. It's just...well... it's the first chapter guys and that's the hardest one to change because it sets up the entire world this fic takes place in.

Ja ne-  
Callista Miralni


	2. The Crew

Heist

Callista Miralni

Disclaimer: I don't own _Heist Society_ or _Naruto_.

IMMA FIXING SASU-CHAN'S CHARACTER! Even though he seems to be OOC and super nice previously... he's still everyone's favorite emo. T_T *must make that distinction clearer* He is by far, the most difficult character to write.

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and added to alerts! You guys have overwhelmed me and brought my hopes up for this crack fic (well... crack for me at least XD).

* * *

Two: The Crew

**-Thirteen Days until Deadline-**

**-Kyoto, Japan-**

Iruka dropped them off at the Kyoto Memorial Park.

Buttoning up her coat against the bitter winter wind, Sakura cupped her hands around her mouth and let her breath warm up her hands. A stray lock of pink hair escaped from under her hood and danced freely in the wind.

Beside her, Sasuke's ears were turning pink but other than that, the teen gave no indication of how much the weather affected him. They walked side by side in silence, looking for someone who could be anybody and nobody at the same time.

Then, they saw him.

To Sakura, the man was attractive. But in her world, attractive was not synonymous with handsome. Handsome described people like Tou-chan, or Narimiya Hiroki, or Sasuke. This man was attractive and _perfect_.

He chatted away on his Blackberry, making some sort of business arrangement with his secretary when a rumpled vagabond crashed into him.

"Are you alright sir?" The man asked in alarm, wrenching his phone away from his ear.

The hobo steadied himself by grabbing the lapels of the other man's coat. "I'm... fine." He grunted. "Sorry about that."

The perfect man gave him a bewildered look before continuing down the path and carrying on with his arrangements.

Beside her, Sasuke smirked and his eyes shone with suppressed mirth. _Oh that was a good one._

His companion saw the amused gleam in his eyes and rolled her own. "Whatever. C'mon, we gotta catch up."

The hobo sank down on the nearest park bench, completely ignored by the passerby. Sakura pulled Sasuke by the arm and stood before him, blocking his view of the scenery.

"Hello Sarutobi-jii-chan." Sakura greeted politely.

The old man—her great uncle—grunted and beckoned for the teens to follow. They followed him out of the park and to the station. Exiting the train, the two teens wove through the crowds and walked down the street after him. The neighborhood was quiet.

Thieves have a few simple rules. One—don't do anything that would get you caught. That means no permanent addresses, no using personal bank accounts on jobs, and no revealing your true name while incognito.

The second rule was don't betray a fellow thief.

However, Sakura learned early on that if you knew the rules well enough, it was okay to break them. She guessed that this is why only Sarutobi-jii-chan was allowed a permanent address, a sure sign of his remarkable legacy and ability as a con artist.

Sarutobi-jii-chan's house was the base of operations for the Senjuu clan and the one place wayward and displaced Sakura called home.

Stepping inside the modest two-story home, Sarutobi-jii-chan barked, "Take off your shoes," as he withdrew the businessman's wallet from his pocket and threw it on a pile of similar looking ones.

Sakura slipped off her worn Pumas and was about to follow Sasuke down the hall when she noticed he hadn't taken off his. _That asshole_, she grumbled as she wrenched his arm back and forced him to remove his brand new Nike sneakers.

"They're just shoes Sakura." The boy grunted as he grudgingly unlaced his sneakers.

"Not in my uncle's house you overly pompous rich brat!" Sakura hissed.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at her but said nothing as he brushed past her and made his way down the hall. Painfully, Sakura was reminded of how Sasuke _used _to be when the first met. Cold, uncaring, unfeeling. Did he need to be a thief in order to learn how to smile? Did he need to steal someone else's joy in order to find his own?

Did _she?_

Sakura already knew the answer to that one.

"We practice an old art Sakura." Her uncle threw Sasuke's wallet at him when they entered the kitchen. "It is kept alive not by blood"—He slid her passport towards her on the counter—"but by practice. I suppose you were absent the day your teachers presented that particular lecture."

The back of her neck flushed from the embarrassment of being conned so easily. She distracted herself by studying the room; the kitchen was the same as she remembered it, with an assortment of cooking utensils hanging from the ceilings and walls. There was a pot simmering on the stove and her uncle stood before it, ladling out bowls of his signature shiitake mushroom soup. He handed one to Sasuke and shoved another into Sakura's hands.

"Sit." Sarutobi-jii-chan commanded.

The two teens sank into the mismatched chairs around the heavy table. The kitchen—more specifically, the table—brought back so many memories. This was the room where her uncle planned the hijacking of 90% of the world's _gari_ supply for the year. This was the room where her father assembled a crew to steal a painting of the last emperor from the Indian Parliament building.

This was the room where Sakura announced to her family that she was leaving to steal an education from one of the finest schools in the world.

Sakura never thought she'd be in this kitchen for the reasons she left it. It was hard to walk away from its warmth but coming back three months later was even harder. The kitchen was a blazing inferno and Sakura felt suffocated.

"This soup needs tomatoes to be good." Sasuke muttered out of the corner of his mouth, mostly for his own benefit.

Sarutobi-jii-chan "Hrumph"-ed and made some muttering comment about how Sakura brought home no better men than her mother did, even if this one dressed better. She ignored the jibe at her father.

"Yo Sarutobi-jii, we're back!"

The back door slammed open and two teenagers wrestled with a large shaggy dog through the door.

"They didn't have anymore Sinhala hounds but we got a... hey! Sa-chan's here! With the bastard!"

"Dobe." Sasuke growled from the table.

Uzumaki Naruto and his cousin Inuzuka Kiba grew up in the Hokkaido countryside and could have passed for twins if it weren't for the differences in eye and hair color. They were both tanned, muscularly built, and had the loudest voice-boxes Sakura had ever heard. Which was saying something considering she grew up with Ino.

"Hey Sa-chan..." Kiba studied her. "I though you were at Konoha."

The girl felt the back of her neck flush and didn't know how to reply but Sasuke saved her by asking Naruto:

"How's your ass doing after that job in Manila?" Sasuke sneered. "I'm surprised that dog in your hands hasn't bitten the rest of it off."

"HEY!" Naruto exploded. "The doctors fixed me up no thanks to you!" The teen let go of the dog's collar, forcing Kiba to dig his heels into to ground to keep him still. Unzipping his pants, Naruto yelled, "You wanna see the scars?

"Oh my God, Naruto, no!" Sakura shrieked, covering her eyes. "I don't want to see you with your pants down! GROSS!"

Even though she said that (and it was true), what Sakura was really thinking was _they did a job without me?_

_They did a job without me._

"Hn. You might want to remember that it was my money that put you through surgery to fix your useless ass _Naruto_." Sasuke reminded the blond boy.

"I wouldn't have needed surgery if you hadn't decided to use me as bait!"

"Boys." Sarutobi-jii-chan cut in.

"Sorry Jii-chan." Naruto mumbled.

Sakura looked around the kitchen. There was Sasuke, leaning back in his chair and looking triumphant over his latest victory over Naruto, Sarutobi-jii-chan was finishing his bowl of soup, and the loudmouthed cousins were standing by the back door. The girl focused instead on the dog between them and realized-

"Dog in a bar."

"You want in?" Kiba perked up at the mention of the classic con.

"_Boys."_ Sarutobi-jii-chan said again.

"Okay! Okay! We'll see you later Jii-chan. Sa-chan! Does this mean you're back for good?" Naruto hollered over his shoulder as he and Kiba dragged the dog out the back door again.

The door slammed shut before Sakura could respond. "I have no idea what it means dobe."

Sasuke made a noise that sounded like he was trying not to laugh but her uncle gave her a piercing stare instead.

"Nothing is free in this world. You are going to have to ask if you want something from me." Her uncle continued to stare as he picked up the threads of their conversation.

Begging time—Kiba once quipped in a similar incident involving Naruto and a particularly persistent female from a rivaling con family.

"Jii-chan... I need your help. _We_ need your help."

"Eat your soup Sakura."

Sasuke was already on his second bowl. Sakura envied how comfortable he was in Jii-chan's house, as if he were a legitimate member of the family rather than an incorporated partner.

Sakura ate a spoonful of her soup and its warmth thawed out her fingers and nose. She took in another bite.

"Who is this _we_ you speak of?"

"Me and Sasuke." Sakura answered hurriedly. "I saw Tou-chan, Jii-chan. He couldn't have stolen them and..."

"Rinnegan Pein paid her a visit in Singapore." Sasuke finished for her.

Sarutobi-jii-chan's attention shifted to Sasuke. "You were to deliver a message."

"And I did." Sasuke answered cooly. "It's not my fault that this stubborn girl has a habit of leaving in the middle of the night and dismantling my security system."

"Nineteen fifty-eight was a good year for Porsche Sasuke."

"So I've heard."

"Rinnegan Pein is not the sort of man I approve of visiting my great-niece."

"I'm right here!" Sakura yelled. "You don't have to talk as if I'm a child!"

Her outburst startled Sarutobi-jii-chan and his eyes shifted to her. He had the look on his face of an old man who is unaccustomed to being yelled at.

"I'm here." Sakura repeated softly.

There were a million things she could have said to ease the tension between her and her uncle. But she never said them. Instead, she said the only thing that mattered the most.

"Pein wants his paintings back."

"Of course he does Sakura." Sarutobi-jii-chan chewed on a piece of mushroom.

"But Tou-chan doesn't have them."

"Your father can take care of himself. He is not one to ask for help, especially from me."

Frustrated, Sakura retorted, "But he's not asking—_I_ am."

"What could I possibly do?" Her uncle sighed in his _I'm just an old man_ tone.

"I need to know who did the Rinnegan job."

"And why, pray tell, do you need to know that?"

It was a test—to see how far Sakura was willing to go. To see how far she was willing to take back her old life as Hatake Kakashi's daughter and Senjuu Sarutobi's great-niece. This was a test of her loyalty to the old family business.

"I need to know," Sakura found strength in her words. "-because we're going to steal them."

Her uncle stared at her impassively before getting up from the table and going to the pantry. Sasuke shot her a small smile of reassurance, one that she would never know was a smile reserved only for her.

"This is a serious matter you ask me about." Her uncle pushed their bowls to one end of the table with a rolled up piece of paper. "The man who did the Rinnegan job is a mystery to us. We do not even know where he is. But..."

He flicked his wrist and roll unfurled. Printed on it were the most complicated blueprints Sakura had ever seen.

"We do know _where he's been._"

* * *

When they finally left Sarutobi-jii-chan's house after brainstorming for hours on _who_ the real culprit could be, the sun had already set and Kyoto was coming to life. Without the warmth from the sun or the heat of Sarutobi-jii-chan's kitchen, Sakura finally felt winter settle into her skin despite her thick coat.

Sasuke walked beside her, his own coat buttoned up to his chin. When the last gust of wind sent Sakura into a frenzy of shivers, Sasuke wrapped an arm around her and brought her close to his side. The passerby didn't question the uncharacteristic move—after all, he was the notorious and arrogant Uchiha billionaire and she was just a slip of a girl-thief turncoat at his side—to them, Sasuke and Sakura were just another couple out on the streets of Kyoto.

It started to rain.

"Hey." Sakura broke the silence. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?"

Sasuke grunted. "Hn. No."

"Really?" She asked. "So that must mean that who ever did it was really smart."

"Or really stupid." Sasuke shook his head, sending raindrops flying off his spiky locks.

"Or that." Sakura conceded. "Remind you of anybody?"

Sasuke snorted. "Too many people."

* * *

**-Twelve Days until Deadline-**

**-Osaka, Japan-**

People went to Osaka for different reasons.

Some saw it as an opportunity to cheaply escape from Tokyo's confines without loosing the conveniences of the modern world. To the new capital's residents, Osaka was exotic with its varying food, its fast-talking, almost rude, slang, and its vibrant night life.

Osaka was the perfect place to hide without leaving Japan.

Osaka was a thieves' paradise.

The hotel was crowded with tourists but they didn't matter to Sakura. The only thing that did was the lecture on algorithmic functions, second degree derivatives, and calculus theorems.

"Is it really necessary for us to sit through this lecture?" Sasuke sighed in aggravation. They sat in the very back corner of the hotel's darkened function room as inconspicuously as possible.

"This room is filled with the smartest people in the world." Sakura answered, nonchalant.

The other teen scoffed. "Well," Sakura amended. "At least is contains _the_ smartest person in the world."

The professor droned on, using a laser pointer to circle a particular equation on his presentation.

"Where is he?" Sakura asked.

"Third row, center aisle. He's asleep like usual."

Raising an eyebrow, Sakura craned her neck to take a closer look. "No he's not. He's awake."

The room full of men and women with thick glasses, bad suits, and an obsession with Folger's Coffee erupted into laughter at something the professor said. If Sakura and Sasuke actually understood a word the speaker said, they probably would have laughed too.

"Hey." Sasuke murmured in her ear. "Does any of this shit matter in the world?"

"Unlike you," Sakura retorted. "Some people appreciate the importance and value of a well-rounded education."

Sasuke yawned and stretched his arms out. Settling one arm around her shoulders, Sasuke smirked. "How responsible of you Sakura. Maybe I'll buy you a university so you can be as well-rounded as you like. And ice cream."

"I'll take the ice cream thanks."

Sasuke shrugged. "If that's what you want."

For the next two hours, they stayed in the function room waiting. The second speaker was just as uninteresting as the first. Halfway through the third lecture, no one paid any attention to the lone A/V staff member who slipped out the service door.

"C'mon." Sakura tugged on Sasuke's hand and followed the man in pursuit.

The hallway was completely empty but the noise from the tourists a floor below echoed through the open atrium. No one was around to hear Sasuke casually greet the A/V man.

"Shikamaru."

The sixteen-year-old yawned and scrutinized his visitors. "Sasuke. And Sakura. What a surprise. I thought you were at Konoha?"

The girl groaned. "Why is that the first thing everyone says to me? Do I not even get a 'hi, hello, how are you doing today' from anybody anymore?"

Shikamaru smiled sheepishly at his childhood friend. "Sorry. It's just... well... you left."

"Don't remind me." Sakura muttered darkly. "Don't remind me."

"So what'd you think of the lecture Shikamaru? Or is it Hayate now?" Sasuke swiftly changed the subject, nodding towards the name tag Shikamaru most likely swiped from the _real_ A/V man.

"Boring. He said nothing new."

"Nothing new to _you_. Let's go find a blind spot." Sakura retorted, recovered from her earlier irritation.

They took the escalator downstairs to the lobby. A wave of school children—probably on a class trip—drowned out their voices as they crossed paths.

"So how's your dad?" Sakura yelled over the din of the crowd.

"Retired!" Shikamaru shouted back.

"Retired?" The girl asked incredulously. "He's _forty-five_."

"And lives by the Nara park to boot." Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Like he needed a reminder of what our name really means. People go eccentric when they hit their prime, acting as if they're going to die tomorrow."

"What does he do now that he's... retired?" Sakura asked, making casual conversation while Sasuke looked for a blind spot in the crowded lobby.

"Consulting with some security company."

"Freakin' traitor." Sasuke shook his head in disbelief as he stopped at a table. "A thief now _consulting_ with a security company. No shred of dignity whatsoever."

Shikamaru chuckled at Sasuke's mutterings. "No kidding. So what's up? Is it a job?" His lazy expression brightened with anticipation.

"Sorry kid." Sakura smiled. "Just a favor."

The teen deflated. She slid the tube Sasuke had been carrying off his shoulder and unrolled a copy of the Rinnegan blueprints on the table.

"Holy shit. What the hell Sakura?" Shikamaru studied the blueprints intently. "Is this a bank? It has to be with the amount of security measures it's got."

"Nope." Sasuke shook his head.

"Government?" Shikamaru guessed again.

"Nope." Sakura answered this time. "Private collection. Art."

"Yours?" Shikamaru directed to Sasuke.

Sasuke smirked. "I wish."

"So is it our objective to make it yours?"

Exchanging a look with Sasuke, Sakura breathed deep. "It's not exactly a typical operation." She answered vaguely.

Shikamaru continued to study the blueprints, muttering unintelligible things to himself as he went through all the plans. After five minutes, the teen looked up at them again.

"I'd say it's a pass. Unless, of course, it's Fort Knox." Suddenly, the thought occurred to him. "Is it Fort Knox?" Shikamaru asked hopefully. "Do the Americans keep plans of their forts lying around?"

"It's not Fort Knox." Sasuke snapped.

Shikamaru rolled up the plans and handed them back to Sakura. "I wouldn't hit it in that case."

"Too late." Sakura sank into a chair glumly. "It's already been hit."

"By your dad?"

"And _why_ does everyone assume that as well?" Sakura exclaimed.

Shikamaru held his hands up defensively. "Well... it's the kind of place your dad would hit just because he felt bored and thought he needed a challenge."

Sasuke shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "We need a list of who would hit a place like that. _Besides_ Kakashi."

The other teen yawned and pulled up a chair. "It's not a big list."

"Even better." Sasuke answered curtly. "The smaller the better."

Shikamaru looked around the room and stiffened when he caught sight of something unusual. "Can I... keep those?" He asked without taking his gaze off it.

Sakura tossed the roll and its container back at him. "We've got a spare."

He returned the smile uneasily before looking across the lobby again. Sasuke checked his watch and told his companion, "We need to go. Iruka booked our flight for noon tomorrow. It'll take us a while to drive back to Nara."

"Thanks for all your help Shika." Sakura smiled gratefully as they began to walk away.

"Hey Sakura." The other boy called them back. "Is this why you're back?"

Her smile faltered. "Sort of."

Shikamaru didn't smile as he pointed out the thing he had been studying for the last few minutes. "I was just wondering if it had anything to do with that tail of yours. They've been following since we left the conference."

Whipping her head around in the direction of Shikamaru's finger, Sakura recognized the two people he pointed out as the two muscles that followed Pein where ever he went. One of them raised his arm in the air and tapped on the expensive Rolex watch on his wrist.

"Sakura?" Shikamaru asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Turning back around, Sakura pushed the two boys out the door and onto the Osaka city streets. "Keep walking and don't look back." She hissed.

Pein's message was startling clear.

_Time is running out.

* * *

_

**-Eleven Days until Deadline-**

**-Hong Kong, China-**

_Oh hell no_...

That was all Sakura could think the moment the plane touched down.

It didn't matter if she was standing next to the most handsome boy she knew, on his private plane, in his private airstrip. It didn't matter if she was in one of the most mysterious places she'd ever have the privilege of visiting. It didn't matter if there was a girl with her hand sassily placed on one cocked hip with flowing blond hair and bright blue eyes standing at the bottom of the stairway. All Sakura could think was _oh hell no_ and she wondered why the sight of the girl sent chills down her spine.

"Hello Forehead."

Oh yeah... that was it.

"Can I talk to you Sasuke?" Sakura hissed between her clenched teeth as she yanked on Sasuke's arm to pull him back inside the cabin. But no matter how hard she pulled (and Sakura had a decent amount of strength), Sasuke would not budge from his place at the top of the plane's stairwell. Damn him and his workout routine that gave him his lean sexiness. Damn him.

"Cut it out Sakura." Sasuke slipped his arm out of her death-grip and descended down the stairs.

The girl squealed at the sight of him and launched herself at his form. "Sasuke-kun!" She chirped in that high-pitched voice that made Sakura cringe. "Did you miss me?"

"No." Sasuke answered curtly as he pried her arms off his neck. "Get off me."

The girl had to jump in order to wrap her arms around the boy's body. Sakura wanted to point out that she was flashing everybody within a two mile radius with that short skirt on and those high stiletto boots were impractical for jumping. Sakura longed to say all those things and more but for now, all she could do was stand frozen at the top of the stairs. She didn't move until the girl pouted and slipped off Sasuke's back, directing her attention to Sakura instead.

"Oh don't be so frigid Forehead, don't you have a hug for your cousin?"

Yeah... that was it. How could Sakura forget.

Families are the weirdest things—she finally remembered. Especially family businesses. You always get those classic shojo manga situations where someone doesn't want to take over the family business in order to pursue their own dreams. In order to get the girl. In order to make a name for themselves. You know, that kind of thing.

But Sakura always wondered if in every family, there spawned a generation of two lone teenage girls who couldn't stand to be near each other. Who couldn't be in the same room without a verbal fist fight erupting. Without some kind of rivalry between them. Did the restaurant in Jakarta suffer from their refusal to work the same shift? Did the clothes shop in Okinawa suffer from their intense and bitter rivalry?

Sakura would never know the answer to that one since she had no other family except her own. These feelings were probably only confined to families who had a higher likelihood of being shot at than others. Yeah... that was probably it.

"Sasuke-kun..." Yamanaka Ino whined as she tucked her arm in the crook of his own. "Sakura's not being nice to me."

To Sakura's satisfaction, Sasuke pulled his arm out of Ino's grip and glared at her. "Not my problem."

"So cold!" Ino exclaimed. "It still makes you hot though Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke shot her a look, one that could have been read as apathetic. But to Sakura, _she_ knew he was disturbed beyond belief at her cousin's comment.

_Why did it have to be her? _Sakura wailed to herself. But unlike Ino, she refused to voice her complaints. Maybe it had something to do with losing her mother at a young age. Or maybe it had something to do with her upbringing as a thief. Like bad habits, unused skills tended to vanish over time.

"It's nice seeing you again Ino-pig. I thought you were in Beijing. You know, the hooker district." Sakura calmly said.

"And I thought you were stuck in study hall. I guess we were both wrong." Ino answered snottily as they walked through the small airport to the waiting car.

Taking another look at her cousin, Sakura wondered how it was possible that they were only six months apart and yet Ino looked like she was six years older. Ino was taller, curvier, and just... _more_ in general. She felt like a third-wheel trailing behind them as they navigated through the business and nouveux riche crowds, since Ino insisted on staying by Sasuke's side.

"Where's Kaiso?" Ino asked.

"You mean Iruka?" Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Whatever." The girl brushed off the correction. Sakura thought it was a pity her cousin's head hadn't filled out as well as her bra had.

But then, Ino said, "Happy birthday," and the package in her hands suddenly reappeared in Sasuke's blazer pocket.

The pass was smooth and effortless, the seasoned trademark of a member of their family.

Unwilling to let Ino's display of skill get under her skin, Sakura decided to make peace with her cousin and asked, "How's your mom?"

Ino rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. "She's engaged. Again."

"Congratulations." Sasuke drawled.

"Sure, if that's what you think. He's a European count. Or a marquis. Which one's better?" The two girls looked at Sasuke for clarification but he only shrugged.

"Like I would care. That's on the other side of the world."

They stood waiting outside the regional airport, waiting for Iruka to get through the unusually long line of cars. Leaning against the wall, Sasuke pulled the pictures out of his blazer and thumbed through them with Sakura at his shoulder. The lines they had only seen on paper suddenly came to life, zooming in closer and closer to to Pein's mansion when the photos suddenly stopped fifteen hundred yards from the wall.

"This is it?" Sasuke raised his brow. "This is as close as you got?"

Ino popped the bubble of gum. "You mean to the _fortress_? Of course it was; any closer and my head would be gone. Great pick guys."

"We didn't pick it." Sakura reminded her.

"Whatever. The place as a twenty foot wall."

"We know." Sakura told her.

"With cameras covering every blind spot and a guard station at each corner."

"We know." Sakura snapped.

"And it has a river. Did you know that Forehead? What kind of mansion in _Hong Kong_ has a freakin' river running through it? Do you know what could be in that water? There's... _things_ in there... gross things..." Ino shook with fright but Sakura couldn't help but notice how comical it was that parts of her cousin shook more violently than others.

Sasuke shoved the pictures back in his pocket just as Iruka pulled up to the curb. "Forgive me Bocchan. There was a line."

"It's not a big deal." The billionaire murmured. "Just... get us out of here."

"Fine." Sakura was unwilling to let Ino win this argument. "Did you check the police report?"

Her cousin's mocking laugh didn't restore her confidence any, especially when Sasuke was smirking in amusement as well. "Well?" She demanded.

"Oh Sakura." Ino continued to laugh. "Men like Rinnegan Pein don't call the police. People who don't abandon their families would know things like that."

"For the love of God, I left for a few—"

"You still _left._" Ino's voice was cold with no trace of her earlier flirt. "And you'd still be behind your precious ivy-covered walls if we hadn't... if Sasuke hadn't... you'd be there."

Ino's slip in speech put Sakura on edge.

"Ino," She said slowly. "How did you know there was ivy? And how did you know Sasuke was the one who pulled me out?"

Ivy, as most people knew, was not indigenous to Japan. Konoha only had it by export and careful cultivation.

Ino rolled her cornflower blue eyes and scoffed some flimsy excuse about a lucky guess as she studied her nails. There was an irritated glint in Sasuke's eyes.

But she was too busy watching the surveillance tape in her head. A girl in a black hoodie streaked across Konoha's grounds with Danzo's keys in hand. Now that she thought about it, Sasuke was too tall and muscular to pass as Sakura in those clothes.

"You." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I can't believe you! _Ino?_ You had to use _my cousin_ to expel me? It's Ino for the love of God!_"_

"I can hear you~!" The other girl sang.

Sasuke glanced at the livid girl and smiled crookedly. "You're jealous." He stated bluntly.

"I. AM. NOT. Jealous." Sakura clenched her teeth as she continuously punched him in the upper arm.

Stopping her fist with his hand, Sasuke defended himself with, "I don't know that many girls."

The two went silent.

"Okay—so I don't know that many girls with your skills. But it doesn't matter. You're here."

Ino smiled flirtatiously (Sakura thought she looked like an ugly cow about to go to slaughter) and battered her mascara-covered lashes. "Oh Sasuke-kun... you sure know how to make a girl feel special."

Sakura felt like an idiot.

The car stopped a block away from the hotel. Sakura bolted out the door and blocked the exit.

"I'll see you at the hotel." She said to Sasuke. "And I'll see you at New Year's." She waved to Ino. "Or at your mom's wedding. Thanks for coming and for the initial stakeout Ino. I'm sure you'd rather be in Fiji with some guy at your side. Sorry for taking up your time, but I'll let you go back to tanning."

She ran off so fast that Sasuke didn't have the time to catch her and drag her back to where she belonged—at his side. Except, the girl made it to the corner before her cousin called her back.

"You think you're the only one who loves your dad Sakura?"

The girl stopped and turned around in time to see Ino emerging from the car. For the first time in her life, she swore Ino wasn't trying to con her. Ever since she was six, Ino learned to call five different men daddy, all of them rich, all of them influential, all of them art collectors, and all of them cons. In most ways, Ino had no other father than Sakura's own.

"You need me." Ino marched over to her and used her height to tower over Sakura.

There was no flirt, no glitz, no glam, no lie in her voice. In every way, Ino was Sarutobi-jii-chan's great-niece, the carrier of his blood. A thief of the highest pedigree.

"Like it or not Forehead Girl, our lovely family reunion stars now."

* * *

They rented a car using Ino's fake ID and one of Sasuke's credit cards. Parking the Mazda a block away from Pein's mansion on the fringes of Hong Kong, the three teens got out and walked the rest of the way. The moon was rising overhead, peeking every so often through the clouds. The darkness made in near impossible to watch her steps, and Sakura felt like an amateur out on her first casing by the way she stumbled over the smallest pebbles and nearly crashed into Sasuke several times. Crouching behind the bushes of the property across the street, they tried to think of ways to get past the guards and through the heavy iron gate.

"Groundhog?" Sasuke suggested softly in her ear.

"Too long." Sakura shook her head. "And too much noise."

"Fallen Angel?" Ino suggested.

Taking another look at the sky, Sakura sighed and shook her head again. "That would work because there's enough cloud cover but there's too many sensors on the ground and four mastiffs. Too much of a risk to any of us."

The guards were yelling something at each other in Cantonese and the gate swung open. A delivery truck went through and the iron shut immediately.

Suddenly, Sakura was on her feet and moving towards the gate.

"What are you doing?" Ino hissed. "You're going to get caught!"

She flashed them a smile just as the moon illuminated her pink hair.

"I know."

And she rang the doorbell.

"State your businesses." A clipped voice echoed from the speaker.

"My name is Haruno Sakura and I'm here to see Rinnegan Pein about his paintings."

The gate swung open and Sakura was in.

Across the street, Ino struggled against Sasuke's iron grip on her shoulder. "She's going to die!" The girl was hysterical.

"Shut up. You're going to get us caught." Sasuke growled as he pulled Ino back to the cover of the bushes.

They sat their waiting for Sakura to come out.

If she would ever come out.

* * *

A butler took her coat and ushered her through the darkened mansion. Everything was in pristine order and condition; Sakura got the feeling most of it was for show rather than practical or nostalgic purpose. He opened the doors to the second floor study and one look at the room told her this is where the master of the house truly lived.

A dark wood paneled walls were covered with paintings but the space behind Pein's desk was oddly bare. In a corner by the window, a white grand piano stood with the cover propped open. The windows reminded Sakura of the old British country homes—thick glass laid out in a diamond pattern.

"Sakura." Pein sat down at his desk. "What a surprise. Do you have my paintings?"

"No." Sakura leveled her gaze. "I told you already—my father doesn't have them and neither do I."

Pein sighed. "A pity. What did you hope to accomplish by coming here then? Did you come to steal my Aphrodite statue?"

Snapping her fingers, Sakura couldn't help but sarcastically reply with, "Damn. I knew I should have brought a big purse," even though she had no bag on her.

Pein laughed and the sound sent chills down her spine but she refused to show her fear. "I like you Sakura—you're highly entertaining. In most ways, you and I are a lot alike. We could have had a prosperous friendship."

_CREEP!_ Sakura's mind screamed.

He reached out to pick up the phone on his desk. "But... since you don't have my paintings, it is regrettable that I must resort to this..."

"Wait." He stopped.

"Let me help you." Sakura bargained. "Help me get your paintings back. There is no profit for me or my family if you do not have them. You'll just continue to blindly hunt us down even though we're innocent."

Pein studied the teen before him. After a tense minute, he relaxed his arm and laughed again.

"Ah... you _are_ amusing indeed Sakura. What do you want from me?"

"Information." She answered quickly with a smirk she could have only learned from Sasuke. "Show me everything you've got. You say you have proof my father did this job? I want to see it."

Hours later, Sakura would walk out of that mansion completely unharmed with a CD tucked under her arm. Years later, the story of Sakura's meeting with Pein would be retold around Sarutobi-jii-chan's kitchen table. Some people said she had to dodge a volley of bullets and used an advancing mastiff to open the gate for her when the dog missed his target to escape. Others would say she slipped out through the water gate in the river. And still others claimed that her conversation with Pein that night involved an antique set of shinobi shuriken and kunais hanging on the walls of Pein's study (which, according to stories, Sakura also stole that night). But none of that would have been the truth.

It had begun to rain while she was inside the mansion. Ino, Sasuke, and eventually, Sakura were soaked through when they arrived at the hotel Iruka booked for them. Toweling her hair dry, Sakura looked at her cousin sprawled out on one of the penthouse's couches in a terry cloth bathrobe. She pulled on a pair of dry sweatpants and a tank top but her skin crawled with goosebumps so she added a sweater on top of it. The television in the living room had a DVD player and she popped in Pein's disk.

"We need munchies." Ino suddenly said. "Am I the only person who's famished?"

"Tomatos." Sasuke grunted.

That's when Sakura realized why she was so cold. Sasuke hadn't spoken to or looked at her on the walk back to the car, on the ride over to the hotel, or on their way up to their room. When he spoke, he spoke with _Ino_. When he looked at them, he focused his eyes on the wall over her head. Uchiha Sasuke was the boy who had been walked out on too many times in his life and that stunt Sakura pulled probably didn't help his memories.

Deciding to ignore the chill, Sakura pulled the complimentary notepad and pen towards her and settled in her chair to take notes of the surveillance video. She tossed Ino the remote after pushing PLAY.

Grainy black and white images flashed in sequence on the screen, first showing the entry way, then the kitchen, the parlor, the cellar, the grounds, Pein's study, then...

"Stop."

Ino hit PAUSE and the screen displayed a room Sakura hadn't seen on her brief tour of the house. Something in her stomach told her that very few people had seen that room.

An entire stone wall room with a single bench in the middle filled the screen. The ceiling looked like it was in need of repair and the floor was solid marble. The thing that caught Sakura's attention though were the five paintings hanging on the wall.

"Blueprints." Sakura called to her cousin but Sasuke was already unrolling the copy they brought with them on the coffee table.

Her finger traced the outline of Pein's study before it stopped on a ghostly rectangular shape they had previously assumed was part of the cellar two floors below. "Here." The girl swallowed as she quickly mapped out the dimensions of the room on the screen and matched it with the ghost room on the blueprints. "It must be underground and accessible only by a hidden elevator in Pein's study, right behind his desk."

"How do you know that?" Ino gaped.

Sakura thought about the wall space behind the desk and now knew why it looked so odd in the room. "Because I'm pretty sure I was standing in front of it the entire time I was there."

On the floor beside her, Sasuke tensed but he said nothing as he grabbed the remote Ino abandoned on the table and pushed PLAY again.

The tape continued rolling through the clips of the entire estate but two minutes later, just as it transitioned to Pein's study again, a flash of thunder lit up the entire room and the lights illuminating the paintings on the walls went out. As the tape cycled through all the pitch-dark rooms, someone in the kitchen complained about the ancient electrical wiring throughout the house.

A collective groan went around the table. "Benjamin Franklin." Sakura exclaimed. "How simple!"

She knew it was having done it on several occasions herself. The thief would book a room in the city, somewhere close but a hot spot of travelers and wait until a stormy night. Then, he would make his move.

"How long before the generators kicked in?" Sakura asked.

"Forty-five seconds." Ino answered promptly. It was, after all, her job to know things like that in the family.

"That's not bad." Sasuke leaned against Sakura's legs.

"For who? Pein or the thief?" Ino asked.

The boy shrugged, as if the forty-five second delay didn't really matter who it benefitted. "So we know how he got in. Now how did he get out?" Sasuke murmured the next question on everybody's mind.

The rooms were all dark except for one. The camera in the hidden room continued to record with perfect clarity.

"Wait a minute..." Ino pointed out. "Why is this the only camera still functioning? Every other room is so dark, the cameras can't pick up anything."

"It must be on a separate line or loop or power feed." Sakura suggested. "That way, it continues to run even if there is a power failure. This room is probably underneath..."

Suddenly, water started dripping through the ceiling and the paintings were gone.

"... the river." Sasuke finished for her dryly. "Think of anything?"

"Of course!" Sakura realized. "The thief rode a mini-submarine onto the property through the river because there is no security where the walls meet the water. Then, he seals it to the roof of the room, sneaks into the house, and steals the paintings by opening the hatch and cutting open a hole in the ceiling. The paintings would stay dry and he'd be able to... _oh my God. _A mini-submarine."

"How did you know all that?" Ino demanded. "I'm still trying to figure out how you seal a submarine to the roof of a room!"

Sakura shook her head weakly. "Because that's exactly what Tou-chan did." She got out of her chair and started pacing the room. "Two years ago. We were in Malaysia. It was—"

"Brilliant." Sasuke filled in for her.

But Sakura had another word in mind. "Risky." She shook her head.

"Well..." Ino cleared her throat. "At least we know why Kakashi-jii is Pein's leading suspect."

"_Only_ suspect." Sasuke corrected her.

Sakura sank back down into her chair. "The thief must have not known about this off-site system. He probably only looped the feed in the security rooms. Nobody even knew the paintings were gone until Pein came back from a business trip in Beijing."

"Speaking of which-" Ino interjected. "What kind of business is Rinnegan in anyways?"

"The business of being ridiculously scary," Sakura answered at the same time Sasuke said, "Evil."

The two girls looked at him. Sasuke's onyx eyes seemed to smolder when he repeated, "Rinnegan Pein is in the business of being evil."

She knew by the way the usually collected teen swiftly went back to studying the blueprints that Sasuke knew things about Pein he wasn't telling. And Sakura didn't want to know. Those were the tales told in darkened rooms filled with cigar smoke. Those were the tales no one wanted to hear on a dark stormy night, much like the night the thief stole Pein's paintings.

Sasuke pushed aside the blueprints and audibly muttered, "With that, I think I'll hand cuff myself to you the next time you decide to take a late night walk."

"Hey!" Sakura cried out. "I was _fine_." Her voice grew desperate as she tried to convey to Sasuke that he was being overprotective. "He... likes me. Thinks I amuse him. And he says... that I'm just like him."

"You're not." Something in Sasuke snapped. For the first time that night, he looked at her as he softly whispered, "You're not... anything like him."

Sakura couldn't help but stare at him. Most of the time, she thought she knew everything about Sasuke, except for the exact details of his sad family history. But some times—like this time—Sakura felt as if she knew nothing about the boy at all. He hated people, but liked her family enough to converse and work with them. He was rich without working and and his coiffeurs filled themselves even without his underworld dealings. He loved to tease her and make her feel insignificant but his silence cut her deeper than his insults.

Ino watched this exchange silently. She ducked her head down and hid a knowing smile.

_Oh Sasuke-kun..._

"Well," The other girl brought their attention back to the matter at hand. "How deep is that river at its shallowest?"

"Eight?" Sakura guessed.

"Ten." Sasuke said. "It can't be less than ten feet at its shallowest."

"Okay..." Ino rolled her eyes at Sasuke's quick recovery from being sentimental to his usual arrogant self. "How small does a sub have to be to navigate through it."

"Small." Sakura emphasized. "_Really_ small."

"That doesn't answer the question of _how_ small." Ino shot back.

Pressing PAUSE on the remote, the TV froze on the image of a masked man carrying off the five priceless paintings. Sakura stole Sasuke's iPhone and did something with it before tossing the cell phone at Ino. The other girl caught it with ease and looked at the screen. A map of Taipei, Taiwan filled the screen.

"Why don't we find out?"

* * *

Author's Notes:

That took forever. And I'm behind schedule by a day. CRAP.

I would say more but... I'm running late. So ciao for now.

Thank you for reading!

Ja ne-  
Callista Miralni


	3. The Name

Heist

Callista Miralni

Disclaimer: I don't own _Heist Society_ or _Naruto._

WE'RE A-WHIZZING THROUGH THE BOOK!

I realized after I posted the last chapter that I forgot to include one of my favorite scenes. OTL. So I shall have to save it for another chapter. Hooray for ridiculously fluffy moments that give me cavities.

* * *

Three: The Name

**-Ten Days until Deadline-**

**-Taipei, Taiwan-**

The Dahai & Sons Dive Shop in Taipei was, in fact, a family business. Dahai Xiao Lang the Second was unfortunately afflicted with an embarrassing and uncured tendency to seasickness. So instead of following his father and brothers out to sea, he built boats on the marina.

Dahai Xiao Lang the Third took his father's trade and improved the design, catering to the demands of his West-inclined clients.

Dahai Xiao Lang the Fourth, however, was easily the genius of his line. In the last fifteen years, Dahai Xiao Lang IV built the Eastern World's sleekest, most advanced, and justifiably expensive water crafts, all patented under his name.

Or so Hatake Kakashi told his daughter with a mischievous wink before he purchased a particular water craft.

As soon as the afternoon's only sales rep (who was, coincidentally, the owner's middle daughter working after school) saw the young man walk in through the glass doors, she knew he was from one of old families. Anything in their showroom could have been purchased with either cash, a casually written check, or with whatever high-limit credit card he owned.

But that wasn't the reason she smiled when he stopped in front of the glass counter and removed his Oakley sunglasses.

"Ni hao." The teen said and the woman felt like swooning. "I was wondering if you could help me..."

Sitting on the low stone wall of the clothes boutique across the boardwalk, Sakura anxiously tugged at her hair. Part of running a crew meant knowing when it was appropriate to lead and when it was appropriate to let others take control. But that fact didn't help to lessen her anxiety any.

"He's going to blow it!" Sakura exclaimed as she and Ino casually watched Sasuke through the showroom's glass windows. "This is our only good lead and he's going to blow it!"

Ino didn't answer, too busy checking out the boy walking down the street who was obviously staring at her _almost_ inappropriately short skirt.

Growling at Ino's lack of focus, Sakura returned to watching Sasuke. _If he keeps this up,_ Sakura growled to herself, _he'll leave with a girlfriend and no name!_

The girlfriend did not bother her, she assured herself. The lack of a name did.

Still...

It had been twenty minutes since he went in!

They walked around the showroom, skin brushing against skin, a handful of exchanged smiles, eyelashes fluttering... it was enough to make Sakura go mad. Still, she had to hand it to him for being an excellent actor.

"That's it." Sakura snapped. She got off the wall and walked towards the Dahai shop. Ino didn't stop her, too engrossed with flirting with the boy she caught sight of earlier. Had Ino heard anything Sakura said, she might have done something sooner, but by the time she noticed her cousin was missing, Sakura was disappearing through the same glass doors.

"Hey." She casually interrupted the girl's overly-friendly sales pitch, pretending to be slightly out of breath.

Sasuke jerked and stepped away from the sales girl like he had been electrocuted.

"Hi." Sasuke cleared his throat. "I was..."

"Listen." Sakura sighed. "Chichuie said you have forty-five minutes to get back to the airport or we're leaving for Boracay without you and telling your mother you were kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf." Sakura turned to the salesgirl and rolled her eyes. "Of course, _I_ voted for leaving him behind." She sighed in exasperation. "I'm his sister."

"_Step_sister." Sasuke added, smoothly continuing the flow of their cover.

The girl smiled with the knowledge that Sakura wasn't competition. She was just a girl who was too pale and too thin to have spent much time in Taipei. And she had _pink_ hair shot with strawberry blonde highlights (or was it the other way around?—she wasn't quite sure). How strange.

Definitely _not_ competition.

"Are you almost done?" Sakura snapped with some genuine annoyance.

"Yeah." The teen rubbed the back of his head. "They've got some cool stuff." He added, sounding like the typical billionaire's bored kid.

Sakura had to commend the sales girl for keeping a straight face when she heard her father's million dollar industry referred to as "cool stuff."

"So which one?" When Sasuke didn't answer her, choosing to walk towards a particular model they had their eye on the entire time, Sakura pressed, "Are you or are you not going to buy one?"

"Chillax imotou." Sasuke smirked. "I like this one." He grandly gestured to the model beside him.

If Sakura hadn't already known, she would have assumed the model in the showroom was a scaled display and not the actual product. But that was the entire point—it _wasn't _a scaled display.

The _Jiaoren Wangfei_ was the world's smallest, non-military watercraft. It was about the size of Naruto's go-cart, roughly six feet long and four feet tall, meant to be piloted while lying down inside. This water vessel's minimum depth for complete submersion was ten feet. This was the watercraft that was their only lead and Sakura's only hope.

"Yeah..." Sasuke studied it again. "Definitely this one. What do you think imotou?"

"Excellent choice _zunjia_!" The sales girl exclaimed. "If you'll follow me to the counter, I can begin filling out the necessary paperwork."

Sasuke jerked his head in Sakura's direction. "You've got the card, don't you imotou?"

Truthfully, Sakura did not. But one brush pass later (that went completely unnoticed by the sales girl despite the fact that it took place right underneath her nose), Sakura had the card of one Uchiha Sasuke.

The sales girl tried not to let her disappointment show through at not being able to further deal with the young billionaire. She went around arranging and pulling out the necessary forms but then Sakura's pale hand landed on top of hers.

"If I may be honest Lian Hua," Sakura whispered conspiratorially, reading her name off her tag. "My brother... see... he likes toys. He's often bored."

She didn't know if Sasuke had heard her or not, but the other teen chose that moment to climb inside the _Jiaoren_ and pretend to be a World War II sub pilot battling the American Navy.

"Oh yes, I see." Lian Hua nodded empathetically.

"Like... four years ago, he convinced his mother, my stepmother, that he needed a place to play. So, they bought him a beach house in Boracay. The next year, he said he needed something to be able to play _on in_ the water. So he bought a twenty-five meter yacht. " Sakura sighed dramatically.

Lian Hua's eyes were wide and she shot the boy another look.

"But the year after that," Sakura continued. "The Hyuuga brothers bought a twenty-eight meter yacht and launched it at Boracay. Naturally, Aniki was most upset because their yacht was bigger than his. Of course, when Aniki is upset, his mother gets upset and when Misaki-san is upset..." She paused for effect.

"I see _Xiaojie_."

Sasuke whooped as he took out an entire underwater minefield.

"My brother needs to be _the _guy with the _Jiaoren Wangfei_, not _one_ of the guys with the _Jiaoren Wangfei_. If we get to Boracay and the Hyuuga brothers have one..."

"Oh no! We don't sell that many." Lian Hua softly exclaimed, as if her father would have a heart attack for spilling trade secrets to a complete stranger. "It's really more for show... you know, we've only sold two in the last year."

"Really?" Sakura asked incredulously. _I can't believe my luck!_

"Mhmm." Lian Hua twiddled with her pen. "The first one went to an American marine research company and the other went to a private owner."

"I knew it!" Sakura exclaimed. "I must tell Aniki-"

"Oh but it wasn't to any brothers!" Lian Hua hurriedly explained, desperate not to loose her customers. "It was to a man who runs in the same circles as your family."

_Oh you have no idea..._ Sakura thought.

"I'm afraid..." Sakura turned to walk away, counting on Lian Hua's eventual...

"He didn't live in Taipei or the Philippines." The girl babbled. "In fact, Namikaze-laoye was quite specific as to where he wanted his _Jiaoren_ delivered."

Sakura froze. _This is it..._

"Namikaze?"

"Namikaze Minato. And he wanted his _Jiaoren_ delivered to Thailand, near Bangkok."

They had their name and a location. Finally.

And just for kicks, Sasuke bought a _Jiaoren_ anyways.

"Hey." He shot Sakura an amused smirk as he signed off on his purchase. "I'm a bored little boy remember?"

Groaning, Sakura swatted him on the arm. "Don't remind me."

* * *

On the flight to Bangkok, Sakura watched the cloudscape out her first-class seat window. They took a commercial flight instead of Sasuke's private plane in order to cover their tracks.

Namikaze Minato.

What kind of man was Namikaze? He must have been pretty cold-hearted, to let an innocent (relatively speaking) man take the blame for his heist.

Then again, Sakura mused, he must be pretty good to imitate another thief so well that it left Pein with no doubts as to who the perpetrator could be.

What kind of man would he be? Would he be young or old? Short and fat or tall and thin? Was he Japanese or just had a Japanese name?

Who was Namikaze Minato?

All these questions made her wish she was back at Konoha, although she'd die first before admitting that. There was something about being able to sleep in the same bed every night and knowing the way to the bathroom in pitch darkness. Plus, there was the library, a place where she could take all the books she wanted and not feel guilty about it later.

But the thing Sakura loved the most about Konoha was that it was the only place where she was allowed not to think.

On her first day, they gave her a slip of paper with her room assignment and her class schedule. A list of extracurricular events taking place that week and the menu for the day were posted in the common room of her floor. Her teachers would assign her specific chapters to read and hand out papers to complete—all with a specified deadline.

Everything at Konoha was what she expected it to be ever since the night Gai-jii-chan (who wasn't really her uncle but her father's long-time friendly rival and self-proclaimed best friend) had pulled her out of Sarutobi-jii-chan's kitchen and emphasized that boarding school was a lot like prison (an ironic statement considering Gai-jii-chan had just broken out of prison that day and showed up on Sarutobi-jii-chan's doorstep that night).

Sakura took in everything he said but refused to let that deter her. Looking at it from all the angles, she concluded that Gai-jii-chan was right about Konoha but what choice did she have? It was either Konoha now or jail later.

Konoha, for starters, had cuter uniforms. So it was a no-brainer as to which one she would pick.

But autumn was fading into winter and Konoha was no longer part of her life. In her jacket pocket, she fingered with three different passports, one of Sasuke's credit cards, and a pre-paid cell phone Sasuke insisted she buy before they left Taipei. Sakura herself was fluent in four languages and could efficiently stumble her way through two more. She could go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and be perfectly fine.

Maybe it was the plane's dizzying altitude or the lack of a decent night's sleep, but Sakura felt her head spin with all the possibilities. Her mind wouldn't shut up with all the questions despite her best efforts _not_ to think.

Like... how was it possible that Ino was even prettier when she slept? Something Sakura found quite unfair since she could never wake up without finding a bit of drool on her pillow.

And... why did Ino insist on resting her head on Sasuke's shoulder as she slept when Sakura knew for a fact Sasuke's shoulder was rather uncomfortable and hard from hitting him all the time? There were pillows, rather soft ones too, in the overhead compartment Ino could use instead.

She wished she had left all her questions on the ground.

But wishing wouldn't matter; once they landed in Bangkok, even more questions awaited for her to puzzle over. Her mind circled back to the most important one of all.

Namikaze Minato.

Finally, her mind yielded to her body's demands and she slipped into sleep. Sakura never saw Sasuke gently push Ino's head off his shoulder and get a blanket from a passing flight attendant. She never saw the gentle way he covered her with the blanket and never felt the feather-light kiss on her forehead. She was fast asleep.

* * *

**-Nine Days until Deadline-**

**-Bangkok, Thailand-**

The nice thing about being partnered with a billionaire was his butler.

She never knew how Iruka beat them to Bangkok or when he even left Hong Kong, but when they landed and navigated through the immense airport, he was already waiting for them at the baggage claim with their belongings collected and stowed away in the trunk of the car.

"Did you have a nice trip Ojou-san?" Iruka asked Sakura as he opened the door for her.

Thankfully, the car had been running for quite some time and it was cool, a welcome escape from the humid air.

"Sure." Sakura answered easily. "What's your definition of a _nice_ trip?"

Iruka laughed. "You never fail to make me laugh Ojou-san. No wonder why Bocchan likes keeping you around."

"Iruka." Sasuke warned.

"Forgive me Bocchan." The old butler chuckled. "I couldn't resist."

"Try _harder_ then." Sasuke said frostily as he slid inside the car next to Sakura.

The girl frowned and swatted her friend in the arm. "Be nice to Iruka; he puts up with you everyday. _How_ he does, though, is completely beyond me." She grumbled the last part under her breath.

Sasuke eyed her before putting her into a headlock and mussing up her hair. "Take it back _imotou_." He taunted her.

"Mkmpf!" She yelled behind his arm. When the teen refused to release her, Sakura-

"Ouch! Goddamnit Sakura!"

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Sakura made a disgusted face. "Ugh. The taste of spoiled brat. Not good."

Someone cleared her throat and the two looked at the source.

"I'm right here guys." Ino reminded them. "Quit flirting."

"You-! Call-! That-! FLIRTING!" Her cousin shrieked. "He was fucking molesting me!"

Holding back a smile, Ino waved her hand in front of Sakura's face and asked, "Why are we here?"

"To find Namikaze Minato but Ino-!"

"Let's just focus on that okay? Flirt with Sasuke-kun later." Ino laughed. "God knows it's amusing to watch you fail. I knew it was a good idea to stick around; you elevate my self-esteem way too much."

"INO! YOU BITCH-!"

"Stop." Sasuke interrupted their fight. Well... that wasn't hard for him to do since he _was_ sitting right between them. "Just... stop. Chillax. You're both killing my ears and yelling at each other won't help our mission."

Sakura lowered her fist and sank into her seat. On the other side, Ino leaned back into her chair and looked out the window instead. The rest of the ride to their hotel was spent in silence.

As they exited the car, Sakura couldn't help but notice the overly polite way the bellhops greeted them and took their belongings out of the trunk for them. She couldn't help but appreciate being able to go inside via the front entrance and not the ventilation shafts. It must be nice, living on the brighter side of the law every now and then. A girl was treated with more respect that's for sure.

And respect is what she got. At the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok Hotel, located on the banks of Thailand's Chao Phraya river, Sakura was treated like a princess. Which should have come as no surprise to her since Sasuke (or more specifically, Iruka) booked the grandest suite in the hotel, the Oriental.

The Oriental housed foreign dignitaries, famous celebrities, visiting royals, and other distinguished guests in the last 130 years. Tonight, however, the Oriental was playing host to its first crew of thieves.

She couldn't help but admire the room. It was furnished in creams and citrons, cobalts and reds, soothing colors to her frazzled mind. However, Sakura didn't notice the person sitting on the couch in the living room until he spoke.

"Hello Sakura."

The girl jumped and stared wide-eyed at her great-uncle. "_Jii-chan?_" She gaped. "How did you-?"

Her uncle smiled crookedly. "Welcome to Bangkok." He opened his arms.

Behind her, Ino dropped her purse at the sight of their family head and ran straight into Sarutobi-jii-chan's arms. "Jii-chan!" The girl shrieked as she wrapped her arms around his torso. "I missed you!"

Four days ago, Sakura walked back into her great-uncle's home and good graces. But even she could tell that Ino, who hadn't seen him in six months in favor of picking the cushier pockets of Asia's busiest cities, had never really left the warm kitchen.

"So did I Ino. How is your mother?"

"Engaged. Again." The girl rolled her eyes.

Sarutobi-jii-chan looked unsurprised by the news. "He has art?"

"Jewels. Family collection. He's an European count."

"Or a marquis." Sakura quipped.

"I get them confused." Ino confessed.

"Who doesn't?" Sarutobi-jii-chan confessed with a twinkling smile. "It's good to see you child. Only-" He frowned as his eyes swept over her attire, a short blue skirt and a mid-drift baby blue tank top. "I wish I was seeing less of you."

"Hm?" The insult didn't even worm it's way into Ino's mind. "It's good to see you too Jii-chan. But how did you-?"

Their uncle shook his head. Immediately, Sakura knew the question wasn't _how_ their uncle had gotten there but _what had he come to tell them?_

He settled back into his chair. "You have been to see Dahai."

She could smell jasmine tea and wondered when it had appeared in Sarutobi-jii-chan's hand.

"Namikaze Minato."

The name rolled off Sarutobi-jii-chan's tongue. He spoke to all of them but his gaze was focused solely on Sakura. "This name is not unfamiliar?"

"It's an alias right?" Sakura asked.

"Of course." He grinned, enjoying the feeling of educating his great-niece, just as he did when she was still a child.

"And his address is here in Thailand." Sakura stated.

"You have been busy." Her uncle chortled before sipping his tea. "I wish your efforts had not been in vain though."

"So who is he?" Sasuke pressed.

"He is no one." Sarutobi-jii-chan's gaze switched to Ino. "He is everyone."

Their uncle never spoke in riddles and Sakura knew his words meant _some thing_ but that thing was just out of her grasp.

"I don't..." The words, those dratted humbling words that proved Sakura was still a child in many ways. "I don't understand."

"It's a _B__yeolmyeong__ Namja_, Sakura." Her uncle clarified and Ino drew in a sharp breath.

She felt like her vision was tunneling and that time was standing still. Bangkok, one of the busiest cities in the world, was finally silent to her ears. Her chest heaved rhythmically and her mind was completely blank until-

"What the hell is a Byeolmyeong Namja?" Sasuke deadpanned.

Sakura looked at Sasuke and blinked in surprise. One—he admitted weakness in front of Sarutobi-jii-chan, something his stupid Uchiha pride would never let him do. Two—she couldn't believe that she had forgotten that Sasuke wasn't a true member of their family, no matter how accepted he was and how often he accompanied them on jobs.

"What?" The teen was growing irritated by the silence. "Is there something wrong with a Byeolmyeong Nam-"

"Nickname Man," Ino whispered. "A Byeolmyeong Namja is a Nickname Man."

The literal translation was lost on Sasuke—Sakura could tell by the irritated gleam in his onyx eyes, by the hand fisting in his jeans pocket.

"The old families..." Sakura started to explain. "-used names—nicknames, or aliases in the West—whenever they did jobs that were too big and too dangerous, the jobs they even had to keep from each other. They were secret names, Sasuke. _Sacred _names even."

They all looked at Sarutobi-jii-chan smiling a secret smile. If they had bothered to ask, he would have told them about the heist of the North Korean missile plans. He would have mentioned the theft of the last Japanese empress's favorite brooch. Namikaze Minato was the man who stole the painting of Ho Chi Min out of Vietnam's capital and got away with it. But Sarutobi-jii-chan told no tales and Sakura had to guess her uncle had only seen a Byeolmyeong a handful of times in his long life.

"If Namikaze Minato was real," His lips quirked into an ironic smile. "He would have been five hundred years old and the greatest thief who ever lived."

"I still don't get it." Sasuke grumbled.

"It's not a name to be used by the young and inexperienced boy." Sarutobi-jii-chan said sharply and Sakura knew his words were directed at her in particular. "It is not a name used by just anyone."

He rose from his chair and walked to the door. Iruka was already waiting there with his blazer and hat. "This issue is put to rest." The man declared. "I will make peace with Pein, hopefully convincing him to stop his ridiculous chase for his paintings. I will inform your father."

"But-!" Ino protested, jumping to her feet.

"A Byeolmyeong is a sacred thing!" Their uncle spun around and flashed them a deadly glare. "A job done in Namikaze Minato's name will not be undone by children!"

Sakura knew that every thief was a child a heart. It's part of what made them, well, _thieves._ She only had the body and appearance of a child to match. But the way Sarutobi-jii-chan spoke to her, spoke to _all_ of them, made her feel small and very much like a little girl.

"You may go back to Konoha if you desire Sakura." Sarutobi-jii-chan paused at the door. "I'm afraid this matter is beyond you now child."

Sakura wished he had slammed the door; the quiet click as the lock latched into place echoed louder than it should have, ringing through her ears. Sinking into the couch, she barely heard Ino on the phone, making plans to work in the high-class resorts of Bali during the break. At one point or another, Sasuke sent Iruka out for food but Sakura could only wonder how he could eat at a time like this.

Then, the boy turned to her expectantly. "Well?"

Through the open door of the second bedroom, Ino's voice carried through. "Oh Chouji, you're making me blush..."

Sakura could only hear the echoing finality of Sarutobi-jii-chan's final words.

_This is beyond you now..._

Damnit.

Someone very good had gone after Pein's paintings.

Someone well connected had played one of the oldest rules of their world.

Someone very greedy allowed her father to remain the only suspect.

Some very foolish would disobey Sarutobi-jii-chan and try one last desperate play now.

If there were any desperate cards to play that is.

"Sakura, we could always-" Sasuke started to say but Sakura chose that moment to get out of her seat and walk to the door.

"I'll be back." She told him hollowly, pausing at the door to look at him.

She wanted to cry at the look in his eyes. Even though Sasuke was sarcastic and callous most of the time, even though he loved to provoke her and tease her, his eyes couldn't lie to her. Sasuke would give everything—his inheritance, his Hanabusa, his Mercedes car he was ridiculously proud of, his _soul—_to make sure her father was safe. The girl wanted to thank him, wanted to ask why he would sacrifice so much for her, the traitor to their family, but the words choked up in her throat.

"I'll be back soon," was all she could say before she opened the door and quietly slipped out into the humid afternoon.

* * *

Sakura didn't know how long she wandered around downtown Bangkok or where she was going. She let her feet carry her through the streets, lost in her convoluted thoughts. Looped in her brain was Pein's surveillance video, cycling through the room and lingering on the secret room underneath the river. It wasn't until she stopped in front of a cafe that she realized how hungry she was. Then she realized she wasn't alone.

"You know, if you got mugged and raped, or kidnapped for ransom even, I'm sure there are a dozen guys who will try to kill me and make my death look like an unfortunate accident."

Sakura glanced at Sasuke's reflection in the cafe window. The teen didn't smile. He didn't yell at her for leaving him again either. Wordlessly, Sasuke handed her a cup of cold bubble milk tea and she drank it gratefully.

Around them, more people were coming outside, enjoying the cool night air. Bangkok's entertainment district light up and started coming to life. It was the perfect place for pick pocketing, a crowd big enough for her to get lost in. Though Sakura was an excellent thief, she knew a crowd couldn't help her hide forever.

Eventually, someone sees you.

Looking out at the sliver of water, Sakura couldn't help but feel so extraordinarily young in a place so rich with thousands of years' worth of history.

"What do we do now Sasuke?" She asked, praying her voice would not crack and betray her despair. "What are we going to do now?"

Sasuke placed his arm around her and steered her back in the direction of their hotel. "Sarutobi-jii-chan said not to do anything. Do you trust him?"

Her legs felt like they were locked in place, as if she had forgotten how to move. "Of course I do. He'd do anything for me."

Onyx bore into her. "Would he do anything for _your dad?_"

Looking up at the boy with his arm around her, Sakura felt a tear slip out of the corner of her eye. Of course Jii-chan wouldn't go that far for Tou-chan; Sarutobi-jii-chan could barely _tolerate_ her father. Rinnegan Pein was never going to get his paintings back or see them again. Her father would be hunted down and killed.

Sakura couldn't believe Sasuke had seen Sarutobi-jii-chan's reluctance to aid her father and she hadn't. This outsider, with his unclouded eyes, had seen what her heart continuously and stubbornly denied.

"We're crazy." Sasuke muttered. "Absolutely crazy."

She chewed on a boba and watched the ice settle in her cup. The clicking of the ice against each other made her remember something, something from a long time ago when her mother was still alive.

That's when she remembered the red door.

Sasuke stopped when she stopped. "What's up?" He asked her, faintly annoyed by her sudden stop.

Closing her eyes, Sakura delved deeper into her memories. All the answers she needed where right there in her head—she just needed to find the truth and bring it to the surface.

"Sakura." Sasuke's eyes narrowed, waving his hand to catch her attention. "Will you say-"

"Why doesn't Pein go to the police?" She blurted out.

Sticking his hand back into his pocket, Sasuke rolled his eyes as if the answer should have been obvious. "He doesn't like the police remember?"

"Yeah..." Sakura shot back. "What if there's something else that's stopping him? Why would a man with five priceless paintings go through all the trouble of hiding them in a room under a river? Why the separate camera loop? Why the back-up recording? Why not store them in a museum or bank?"

"What if those paintings aren't even _his?_"

Around them, neon signs continued to light up but Sakura continued to see a red door everywhere. Sasuke stepped closer to her. "Sakura-"

Grabbing his hand, Sakura raced off down the street. "We need to get to Seoul. _Now._"

* * *

**-Eight Days until Deadline-**

**-Seoul, South Korea-**

Goketsu Jiraiya was accustomed to receiving teenagers on his doorstep. Most of them were students on some far-fetched quest to earn a better grade for their art history class. A good number were bounty hunters, convinced that the dust covered painting in their grandmother's attic was a priceless treasure worth large sums of money.

But when he woke at five in the morning on that chilly Tuesday morning, Jiraiya pulled on a dressing robe a friend bought in Britain and wandered through his house in the dark, cautious and wary of what lay on the other side of his front door.

"Who is it?" He barked in Korean, wrenching open the door. Jiraiya squinted in preparation from the blinding sun but he realized it was still dark outside, still early morning.

"What do you want?" Jiraiya snapped, still in Korean. "Don't you realize it's still dark outside and that I would like to sleep?"

The couple standing on his doorstep were dressed like students but their eyes were like treasure hunters; Jiraiya could not place them into which category. All he could think of as the November chill swept through his thin nightclothes was there is a warm bed upstairs waiting for him.

"I'm sorry for the hour Mr. Goketsu." The girl said, barely prolonging the vowels as she spoke his native tongue. _Japanese—_Jiraiya immediately placed her accent—_My heritage._

He was tempted to close the door and demand they come back at a later hour but something about the girl stopped him (and the boy did to but he didn't interest him as much). Of all the crazy students that have arrived on his doorstep, no one has ever arrived before sunrise.

"You would prefer Japanese, correct?" Jiraiya switched languages.

Sakura thought she was speaking perfect Korean and ruefully realized that Konoha had taken more from her than she thought.

"I'm good with either." She shrugged but Jiraiya looked at the boy beside her.

"Your friend would protest."

Sasuke glared at him, hating him for exposing his weakness, his language barrier. But his glare was interrupted by a yawn he covered with one hand.

Smiling at how adorable Sasuke was, Sakura thought, _Of all things, an Uchiha cannot buy a decent night of sleep. You'd think they would have figured out how to by now._

"I'm sorry about the hour Goketsu-san." Sakura repeated again, in Japanese this time. "We would have waited-"

"Then wait!" The old man grumbled, moving to slam the door in their faces.

Casually, Sasuke leaned against the doorframe. Even though he was half-asleep, Sasuke knew that if given the chance, this old geezer would have left them on his doorstep without a second thought.

"I hate to say this but... we really don't have the luxury of waiting sir." Sakura sighed.

"My time is valuable as well Ojou-san." Jiraiya snapped. "As valuable as my rest."

"I understand." Sakura placated him, glancing at the empty neighborhood street. "But we have some questions... about art."

"It's always about art here." Jiraiya chuckled. "You'd be better off flying to America and visiting the Smithsonian child. I'm just a crazy old man with too much time on his hands and few friends."

"And a porn collection penned in your younger years as well." Sasuke drawled lazily.

Sakura frowned at the mention of her father's favorite manga and elbowed Sasuke in the ribs. "Not now!" She hissed, even though she too could see the telltale orange cover of _Icha Icha Paradise_ hiding behind the stacks of books. Farther back into the house, Sakura caught a glimpse of the red door from her memories.

"I was told you could help me Goketsu-san." Sakura smiled at him instead.

"And who said that?" Jiraiya demanded.

She could feel Sasuke's eyes on her, asking the same question. The sun started to rise in Korea, illuminating the neighborhood streets. In the pale morning light, Jiraiya finally got a proper look at this girl on his doorstep and suddenly, he knew the answer to his own question.

"My mother."

The old man sighed and beckoned them inside the house. "You look like her." Jiraiya said as he heated up some water and made tea. "Although I'm sure that comes as no surprise to you."

Sakura thanked him for the tea and grimaced. Life was cruel to turn her into part daughter, part phantom. But Sakura didn't mind the way Jiraiya regarded her. It wasn't like the way Sarutobi-jii-chan compared her mother as a thief against her. It wasn't like the way Tou-chan would jump when he realized he was looking at his daughter and not his dead wife. Goketsu Jiraiya saw her as an old friend, a student, a protege to pass his knowledge onto.

"I thought you would come to see me one day." He said as he took a sip of his own cup. "Do you remember your last visit?"

Sakura grinned at the memory. "You gave me milk tea and put in boba at the bottom. I drove my parents nuts for months afterwards because I wouldn't drink milk tea unless it had boba."

"You _still_ drive Kakashi nuts if that happens." Sasuke muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

The old man was caught in between wanting to laugh and maintaining a serious face.

"You were still a little girl; I'm surprised you remember that. But enough reminiscing—are you here because you have something to add to our work together?"

Sakura shook her head and she felt Sasuke shift impatiently. "Unfortunately, I'm here on a different matter."

Sasuke gripped her hand but it wasn't for comfort or strength. _Can we trust him_?

_We have to._ She squeezed back.

Jiraiya waited for her to fill him in. "And that matter is-?"

"The kind of work my mother did when she wasn't researching with you." Sakura spilled, wondering if her words meant anything to the old man across from her.

As it would happen, they did. Jiraiya gave her a knowing smile.

"Do these—" Sasuke took out five photographs from his coat pocket "—mean anything to you?"

The photos were grainy black and white stills from Pein's surveillance tapes. Jiraiya laid them out on the table, studying each one intently, muttering to himself in Korean so fast that Sakura couldn't catch a word he said.

"Where did you find these?"

The question caught her off-guard although it shouldn't have. Sasuke never seemed to have that problem and he answered, "They were in a home movie."

Jiraiya's eyes widened. "And they were all together? In one place?"

The boy nodded curtly. "It's a collection we're look-"

"This is not a collection!"

The shout made Sakura jump but she realized the old man was right. If the paintings were a collection, Rinnegan Pein wouldn't have taken such extreme measures to hide them. These works were pieces of history, locked away and hidden forever until the night Namikaze Minato broke them out of their cage.

"Do you know what this is, boy?" Jiraiya held up a photo of one of the paintings, a colored rendition of a peony flower.

"It looks like a Hsu Hsi."Sasuke answered boredly.

"It is." Jiraiya seemed pleased with Sakura's choice of traveling companions, even if this one had the personality of an ass. "It has no title but it is commonly referred as _Meili Xiaoyao_."

He got up from the table and thumbed through his stacks of books until he found the one he wanted, a binder he had not touched in almost eleven years. "Years ago, a wealthy nobleman received this as a gift. It hung in his private quarters for years, until bandits swept through the land and murdered the noble in cold blood. They took the painting and it has not been seen in almost four hundred years. But-"

Jiraiya passed the book to the two. "-Paintings of the noble and his wife clearly show the work in the background."

Jiraiya went through them all, going through the thick binder as he showed them the rare, documented images of the works compared to the paintings in the tape. They were identical matches. A Monet, a Hanabusa, a Kuroda, and a Takeuchi appeared, all once missing from the pages of history.

The Kuroda won special attention. "Do you know this painting Sakura-san?" Jiraiya asked her quietly.

The girl glanced at the painting and shook her head. "No."

"Are you sure? Look again." The old man urged her.

Sakura's eyes glazed over as she glanced at the photograph on the page. She shook her head again. "No... I don't know it." She answered whisper soft, sensing the man's disappointment.

And disappointed he was. Jiraiya withdrew his finger from the page and relaxed in his chair. "It is called _Kunoichi_." He informed them. "And it's a long way from home."

Sasuke gave her a passive stare.

"Your mother used to sit in that very chair and listen to an old man's tall tales and theories about the whereabouts of these five paintings." Jiraiya sighed. "She used to hear all about the injustice of law and the corruption of the fair trial. And that is how we met... she used to say that it sometimes takes a thief to catch a thief." Jiraiya's eyes shone with anticipation. "You're going to steal these paintings aren't you Sakura-san?"

She wanted to tell him the truth, wanted to tell him so badly, but the truth... it painted the bleakest image of reality.

"Goketsu-san." Sasuke addressed him, attaching a rarely-used honorific (well... rarely used for Sasuke that is. He must be playing some kind of game). "It's a long story."

The old man accepted the vague explanation without a doubt, staring at the two teens with the look of a man who has given up trying to preach right and wrong in this world.

"The men who took _Meili Xiaoyao_ were evil, Sakura-san. The men who received them from _those_ men were also evil. The paintings became items of trade on the black market, the greatest prize of all. There is no good that follows that collection."

He stood and his two visitors also rose.

"Where ever you go, whatever you do—" He grasped Sakura's hand tightly and his eyes pleaded with her "—be careful."

Sasuke opened the door and stepped down onto the front step. The neighborhood was slowly coming to life as the early school arrivers set out from their homes.

Sakura breathed a sigh a relief, knowing this trip hadn't been in vain. Theories were laws, fears were threats. And she felt even more like a ghost, since her mother had stood on this same step years before with all the same questions she had.

"It's good to see you again Sakura-san." Jiraiya smiled at her from the doorway. "When I realized who you were..."

The statement caught her off-guard. "You what?"

"I thought you were here because of the TNM."

Sasuke was already opening the door to the idling car but paused just short of getting in at the mention of one of the best museums in the world. "What happened at TNM?"

Jiraiya laughed outright. "You two should know better than I would." He chortled. "It was _robbed._" He rolled his eyes at the last word. "Or so they say."

Sakura smiled at the sarcasm. TNM—Tokyo National Museum—was infamous for its high-security measures.

"I'm in no position to rob the TNM Goketsu-san." The girl reassured him.

"Oh I knew that." Jiraiya dismissed. "The police are looking for someone already, a man called Namikaze Minato."

* * *

Author's Note-

I'm SOOO sorry this is two days late! My schedule is being tossed down the drain! T_T

Short chapter (or was the last one extremely long?). The next one will be just as short. We're about halfway through the book and we haven't even gotten to the exciting part yet.

The most exciting and most difficult part to write.

As a note, all the painters mentioned are _real. _The paintings are not. The museums are real. Their security measures I have no idea of so I fabricated them. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the history behind the Oriental suite are all factual (I looked it up on the official website).

Just thought I'd let you know. XD

OSSU! Time to haul ass in Chapter Four! I might be able to post it in the late evening, but I doubt it. I have no idea what my homework load will be like tomorrow.

Ja ne!  
Callista Miralni


End file.
